


Stranded

by Plunderer



Series: Wanderer's Saga [1]
Category: Shelter: The Animation (2016 Short Film)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25013800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plunderer/pseuds/Plunderer
Summary: I had this idea of a story within this universe so I just gave it a go. If you liked it, thanks for your time :)
Series: Wanderer's Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133939
Kudos: 3





	Stranded

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea of a story within this universe so I just gave it a go. If you liked it, thanks for your time :)

In the year 2095, many stargazing hobbyist around the world started to notice a new star in the night sky. This one lone star was strange because it appears as if it was steadily glowing and glowing as time passed. It took people no time at all to realize that this was not the case.  
Less than a week later, a foreign space and aeronautics administration agency confirmed that this star turned out to be a rogue exo-planet. A planet that somehow broke off from its own orbit and became a giant debris floating aimlessly in deep space.  
This news was a shock to everyone and after a month, a public announcement was made about the incoming threat that may very well affect every single living being on this planet. The deadline for the arrival of the object was calculated to be less than six years. 

With a cataclysmic event knocking at our front door, countries around the world spared no time to put aside all their differences and beliefs to hurriedly put together different course of action to prevent the total extinction of our kind.  
The Exodus project was born. The exodus project, by pooling in each and every country’s resources, was supposed to provide an escape for the larger population of the world.  
Emphasis on the word 'large'. The Exodus project would be utilizing hundreds of spaceship stationed around the world and each one of these would be prepared for an extended deep space voyage, the ships were dub as ‘Argos’. But no matter the grand scale of this project, it would still be impossible to fit in the entire population of the planet.

More than a year has passed since the first sighting. The rogue planet, which was only visible as a star in the night sky before, has grown large enough be almost the same size of the moon as it kept on getting closer and closer and was clearly visible even in broad daylight.  
This purplish-blue speck in the sky was like a sign of the impending doom for everyone who was unfortunate enough to see it. Not to mention the impending doom this object brought, it was already affecting the world just by being near orbit. The large mass of this rogue planet was disrupting the world’s own gravitational field causing violent storms, storming seas and other natural disaster’s blown out of proportion.  
By that time people started getting desperate, the qualifications for the Argos passenger program was strict and only highly-valued people with necessary skills and qualifications are accepted. Another way to get a ticket was if you had enough millions in your pocket.

But the unfortunate ones who didn't get lucky enough to get a ride from the fancy government owned space shuttle for the rich wasn't left all alone cowering in the homes, or at the very least not all of them.

The underground black markets exploded in business. Providing hard to get by, which means illegal or simply too pricey, parts such as plutonium fuels cells or thruster pods were a huge sell for people who decided to put their fate into their own hands.  
This allowed to people to build themselves their own escape pods. Although not all of them succeeded, others with rudimentary knowledge in rocket science and access to high grade materials and parts did succeed in making one for themselves.

With the initial impacts' deadline coming to a near, the tension can be felt in both the public and the government as everyone prepares themselves for the incoming threat. The passengers of the Argos ships were tucked in their seats in the ship, along with the highest ranking officers of each countries government while the unlucky ones were left to their own devices.  
One would expect that the people, in the face of certain doom, would abandon all their humanity resort to drastic measures such as violence, riots, infighting, and killing each other for the chance to be saved or survive.  
Surely, in some places some people did take part in these kinds of actions but it was sparse and rare at times, as soon as local law enforcement took action these events died down on their own.  
There were even people who were caught trying to smuggle their way into the ships, this was already expected by everyone and security measures were in place just for this exact reason but these people was really crafty to get themselves in. But not crafty enough not to get caught.  
But for the record, I would like to say that the general populace, the ones who were left behind, faced the looming threat with dignity. People tried to live their last days as normal as they would have like any other days. Some quit their jobs to be with their families. Others took their loved ones and moved far, far away from the cities hoping that they could somehow weather through this storm and lived to see tomorrow.  
That wishful thinking, that hope, it stayed with everyone even at their very last moments.

One month before initial impact, dozens of Argos ships around the world finally departed, leaving the rest of the world to their fates. No one could blame them because at end of the day, we're all just different people trying to survive.

\-----

Years have passed since the initial impact of a rogue planet in a collision course heading straight for earth. 

Only fragments of humanity now exist wandering aimlessly in the vast multitudes of space with nowhere to go and no way to contact one another.

One of those aimlessly wandering souls was me.

\-----

Waking up has been tricky when you start living in a zero-gravity environment without an actual day night cycle to rely on. It’s like your body is telling you its morning already but all you see outside the window is the darkness.

I had to squint my eyes to see the red tinge of the clock across the room. It says 7:35 am but the chill in the room permeates the thick blanket covering my body. I had to minimize the use of the temperature regulator to bring down the power consumptions as much as possible.  
This reminds me of my current objective for the day. I had to think of a way to recharge the fuel cells while I still can or I'd die a cold painful dead in this rust bucket I call home.

I rub the sleep from my eyes and head to the bathroom. The cold metal floor chills me to the bone as soon as my foot touches it. The freezing water from the faucet wakes me up instantly, after cleaning up comes the routine system check to see if any changes have happened on the ship while I was asleep.  
After an hour or so of checking, there wasn’t anything new so I guess I'll go back to the most important task at hand for now.

It has been years since I've started living in this small pressurized ship that I now call home. Yep, this ten square feet of enclosed space has been the only place I've been for these past years, a normal human being might have been crazy at some point, and I would’ve have been lying if I said it didn’t affect me in the slightest.  
But despite this, I've manage to get used to it by distracting myself with the various forms of entertainment I've set up to relieved myself of boredom.  
There are plenty of books, music, and other various entertainment forms aboard this place. There’s also the mini green house to cultivate and harvest plants, and of course I've equipped this place with a viewing deck and other equipments not just for stargazing and watching the occasional scenery but to also hopefully find other manmade craft out there and make contact.  
Saying that I'm starved for human contact is an understatement and counting the years doesn't help at all so I just stopped doing it, I have set up a counter just in case I need to know but I haven’t looked at it for the longest time.

Back when I was building this thing, the first thing I thought was it would only take months, a year at the longest, until I could make contact with anyone out here. All this waiting and searching for other is making me feel like I'm the only one that got out in time. No, I can't think about that. I'm not the only survivor out there; sooner or later I'd be making contact with someone.

As I walk around the ship, I see that the blue blinking light, this was for the short wave radio transmitter, was still working. I'd always keep the thing on everyday for at least an hour or so, hoping someone might pick up or better yet, respond. The signal being transmitted was a voice message on a loop. The blinking blue light was mesmerizing to look at that I could've stood there for hours and I wouldn't even notice it.  
I closed my eyes and head to shelves to look for a book to read, again. I didn’t have anything important to do for now so I might as well read to pass the time. I might even come up with a solution for that stupid fuel cell.  
While rifling through the pages, I thought to myself, maybe I should've installed a claw game machine here or something. The thought made me smile.

I suddenly remembered the day that I decided to save myself.

It was a normal day, I got off from work and headed straight home like the usual. I was in the middle of dinner when the public announcement came on, along with the plans of the government of a mass exodus. It took me a few minutes of staring at the screen until I realized that this wasn’t some elaborate TV prank or anything like that. This was real and no one could do anything about it, at least not someone like me.

The very next day, everything felt exactly the same as it was before, although I can feel the tension in on the people in the streets as others walk by. As if everyone was waiting for someone to speak up or do something.  
A few blocks ahead, there was a gathering of people on the side of the streets. The crowd seemed to focus their attention to the woman in the middle, she was standing on a wooden box, talking about something like 'the end times are near' and other religious stuff like that. Others were handing out fliers and such to other passerby.  
One of them even offered on to me, I took one and kindly left. I guess some people do take these things seriously, I thought to myself as I look at the flier on my hand.

At work, some of my office mate would occasionally talk about that matter during their breaks. Asking each other what would they want to do, some say that they'd rely on the governments plan when the time comes and somehow the conversation would abruptly end on that note.  
It seems people really are taking this news seriously and are trying hard not to let this kind of thing interfere with their day to day life, or at the very least, show that it was bothering them.  
Who could blame them, between paying overdue bills, food, and other things against a problem that was years ahead in the future. The most sensible thing to do would be to face the problem that was right in front of you.  
But that was the thing, it may be a couple of years ahead in the future but what people don't realize is that if that future problem wasn’t solved right now, there won’t be a future past that. Still, no one can force themselves to look into a bleak road ahead, especially if they have little or nothing else to do to fix it.

\---

My daytime musing was cut short by a soft alarm coming from the main console; the screen displayed a warning, saying that there were foreign objects detected in the free float path of the ship. I touched the console panel and the holo displayed glowed into life, showing a video feed from the starboard side of the ship. 

With a gesture with my hand, I enlarged the display and zoomed in on the detected object, it was a small debris field approximately 50 meters wide. I could easily maneuver the ship to get out of the way but I've set the ship to automatic free-float mode to conserve the little power I had remaining.

I could manage to avoid one disaster but at the cost being put into another difficult situation. I racked my head to find another option. As I frustrated on my poor planning, the holo display showed the debris field coming closer.  
As the debris of asteroid slam unto each other, I noticed that the some rocks cracked into smaller pieces while the other managed to stay in one piece. Then an idea came to me, I sat in front of the console table and fastened myself, I went on and fiddled with controls until a 3-D model of the ship appeared, along with the list of offline and online systems.  
I skimmed the list to find what I was looking for, now all I need was to reroute a little bit of power from the main thrusters and into the peripheral harpoon hooks equipped all around the external parts of the ship.  
Turning on the internal gyroscope too was important to avoid too much damage to the ships interior. The plan was to hook on of the larger asteroids and pull either the ship or the rock towards each other. 

Using the momentum created, I can briefly power up the thrusters to fling the ship itself away from the debris' path. This way, I could use as little thrust as I can while using the momentum made from the pull and swing out of harm’s way. Another added bonus was I could use the asteroids mass and centrifugal force to move the ship farther out of the way.

This was all just one big risk though. If only I could manage to get close enough and reach one of the asteroid on time before I got hit by the other rocks then maybe I had a chance, just maybe.  
A panel opened up from the console and two joysticks controller came out. The four grappling hooks on the right side of the ship whirred to life and took aim. Beads of sweat trickled down my forehead as I carefully aim at the nearest asteroid; I just need to wait for it to get in range ... right... about... Now! After pressing the button, the four hooks flew towards the foremost piece of rock.

The first hook hit one side of the rock but failed to latch in but the other three managed to connect successfully. Now here comes the fancy part, I need to time my maneuver just right; the ship was just nearly twenty meters away from the latched asteroid when I activated the thrusters briefly to initiate the swing.  
The timing was far from perfect but it did get the job done, at the cost of a few dents. A few smaller asteroids managed to get a direct hit and caused the entire ship to violently shake.  
The ship suffered one particular large impact and I heard something spark and a brief explosion came from outside. God I hope that wasn't anything important.  
After that inelegant driving, the entire ship almost did a 180 around the incoming debris field and I could almost feel the inertia if not for the internal gyroscope minimizing the stress.  
I couldn’t use the thrusters to stabilize the ship so I spent a few minutes spinning around in place until the ship self-corrected itself. I tried hard to keep myself from throwing up. 

Once everything calmed down only then did I finally let go of the breath that I didn't know I was holding up until now.  
I guess all those hours of playing video games wasn't enough but the important things was I was still alive and in one piece. I'd have to fix anything broken for the time being, of course but it wasn't all that bad. It was a productive way to take up my time.


End file.
